Knowing
by SmallSerpent
Summary: Albus Dumbledore looks back on the day he met Gellert Grindelwald. One shot for the “Introduction” theme in the 100 Themes Challenge. Contains slash "subtext" and angst. It was exactly 1,000 words by MSWord's count, I swear.


"_...I'm so glad you could stop by, Albus!"_

Albus Dumbledore had always frowned upon the all-too common practice of dwelling on past mistakes. It solved nothing and only depressed one further. You could never go back. The most productive thing to do was to take what you'd learned and move forward.

"_... There's someone I want you to meet..."_

But even Albus was not immune to rare bouts of irrationality in the name of self-punishment.

"_...My nephew..."_

It wasn't completely unjustifiable. It was only natural to think about something that, though he didn't know it at the time, would become a defining moment in his life.

"_...He's just moved here from Russia..."_

The dark irony was beautiful. It was such a **small** choice to step into Bathilda Bagshot's house on that quiet Monday afternoon. He was a well-behaved boy about to exchange pleasantries with a relation of a dear family friend. That was normal. That was **safe**. That wasn't the sort of thing that should forever change every life in Europe.

But that was life, wasn't it? We shrug off little choices _because_ the seem so little and safe, and we don't undrrstand that, so slowly that we don't even notice, those little choices add up. By the time we're faced with a **big** choice, the decision has already been made.

"_...Expelled from Durmstrange..."_

That should have been a warning. One didn't get expelled from the self-proclaimed "Darkest School in the World" without doing something very wrong indeed. Thus began the mental flogging. **What had he been thinking?**

"_...He's not a bad boy, though..."_

Albus **hadn't** been thinking. There was another teenage boy in town, living with an old family friend. Albus had stopped listening after that. He wouldn't be alone when Aberforth went back to school. He wouldn't have to bear being stuck in this suffocating small village, caring for his incurably ill sister without at least one person in whom he could find some release. That was all that mattered.

"_...He's just made some poor choices..."_

He could have already been a murderer. Albus wouldn't have cared.

"_...It's very important to me that he adjusts well to life here. I was hoping that you could help..."_

Gellert Grindelwald had adjusted to a lot of things with the help of Albus Dumbledore. Some of them had been far more appropriate than others. Life in Godric's Hollow had not been one of them. The fact that he had never even _tried_ to grant that particular wish was rather low on the list of things Albus felt guilty about. Albus doubted that Gellert would have been able to adjust to Godric's Hollow if they'd stayed there together for a thousand years. Albus couldn't blame him. He'd never adjusted to it either.

"_...He's right out here, in the garden..."_

Albus smiled, because it _was_ funny, if it wasn't sick. He'd found his own personal tempter in a garden, and he'd eaten the forbidden fruit with a glad heart. Albus seemed to remember Gellert eating an apple, too, but he was not ignoring the possibility that his aging mind had thrown that in later because it added to the imagery.

"_...I'll just leave you two alone..." _

That had been a bad idea. It was so much harder to drown in the sparkling blue oceans of a young man's eyes when his great-aunt was near. It was harder to become so enamored with the sound of someone's voice that you didn't care what they were saying as long as they were saying it _to you_ if it was occasionally interrupted by the harsh voice of an old woman. It was harder to fall so madly in love with someone's smile that you'd tell them _anything_—and you'd mean it, too, if that was what they wanted—just so that it would be directed at you when you had to look away from them occasionally to speak with a third party.

A great deal of the trouble that Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald had gotten into would have been impossible if only, for once in his life, someone **hadn't **blindly trusted him to be an adult.

"_Hello. My name is Gellert Grindelwald..."_

It had all come crashing down so quickly Albus had gotten emotional whip-lash. In one instant, he'd lost his sister, his brother, and his best friend. Thousands of little choices had finally created a monster, and Albus Dumbledore hadn't been the same since.

"_...You must be Albus..."_

But it was for exactly that reason that Albus could not unreservedly say that he would take it all back. Lives could have been saved, certainly, but Albus was not so short-sighted that he hadn't considered that even more lives might have been lost.

"_...My aunt has told me so much about you..."_

It was an interesting thought, though. How might things have changed if he'd read the last page first? If he'd had the good sense to hold Gellert at arms-length—or, better yet, not hold him at all—and instead confide in his friend from school about his troubles?

Would his sister still be alive? She might have lived to a ripe old age. She might have gotten better, too. Medicine was always advancing...

Would his brother still be willing to call himself such? The Dumbledore brothers had never had a particularly nasty sibling rivalry. They might have made a wonderful pair.

Would Albus have met someone and settled down? Men could do that these days. Not all of the students' parents would like it, but people would deal with it. During Albus' first few years on the Hogwarts staff, he'd never been able to shake the feeling that the Ancient Runes instructor liked him as a bit more than a friend. If he'd trusted himself to find out for sure... Who knew?

"_...It's an __**extreme**__ pleasure to meet you..."_

Well, **he** would never know, at least. Admitting that was the final and most painful part of the emotional flogging. He would never know.


End file.
